Over the last decades quaternions have become a crucial and very successful tool for attitude representation in robotics and aerospace. However, there is a major problem that is continuously causing trouble in practice when it comes to exchanging formulas or implementations: there are two quaternion multiplications in common use, Hamiltons original multiplication and its flipped version, which is often associated with NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. We believe that this particular issue is completely avoidable and only exists today due to a lack of understanding. This paper explains the underlying problem for the popular passive world to body usage of rotation quaternions, and derives an alternative solution compatible with Hamiltons multiplication. Furthermore, it argues for entirely discontinuing the flipped multiplication. Additionally, it provides recipes for efficiently detecting relevant conventions and migrating formulas or algorithms between them.
Download